The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you could envision that there might be little appetite for visiting Zimbabwe’s casinos. In reality, it appears to be working the opposite way, with the crucial market conditions creating a larger eagerness to bet, to try and discover a quick win, a way from the crisis.
For almost all of the locals living on the abysmal nearby wages, there are two dominant types of betting, the state lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a state lotto where the chances of winning are surprisingly small, but then the prizes are also very high. It’s been said by economists who study the concept that most do not buy a card with a real belief of winning. Zimbet is based on one of the local or the United Kingston soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other hand, cater to the astonishingly rich of the state and sightseers. Up until recently, there was a considerably big vacationing business, centered on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected violence have carved into this market.
Among Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slot machines, and the Plumtree gambling den, which has just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only one armed bandits. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which have table games, one armed bandits and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which has slot machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the aforementioned mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a pools system), there is a total of two horse racing complexes in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has shrunk by beyond forty percent in the past few years and with the associated poverty and crime that has resulted, it isn’t well-known how well the vacationing industry which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of them will carry on until conditions improve is simply not known.